Random Musings - Influenza Edition

I hate being sick on holidays. You just cannot enjoy Thanksgiving while howrking up a lung.

On Heroes they Saved the Cheerleader but how did they Save the World?

Gears of War kicks unbelievable amounts of ass. On- and off-line.

I can't decide whether the people getting trampled at 5am outside of a Wal-Mart on Black Friday is funny or sad. Probably funny.

Stories are surfacing that Sony shipped fewer than 180,000 Playstation 3s at launch. Ouch.

Okay I have to go take some Nyquil. Why the hell am I blogging when doped up on cough medicine anyway>

Random Musings - Cliffhanger Edition

Before the television season started I thought Heroes had maybe a 60% chance to be good and a 40% chance to be successful. Happily it's not only great it's (alongside Ugly Betty) the big new show of the season. Which pretty much guarantees that we'll see at least 3 new superhero shows on the '07 fall schedules. I think they need to stop, or at least slow down, the constant parade of new characters and develop the existing ones a little more, but otherwise it's been tremendous.

I was a little disappointed in the first six episodes of Lost. I know that Kate, Jack and Sawyer are the focal characters of the show, but as of now we've seen too much of them and too little of the rest of the castaways. We've gained a little insight into the Others, and possibly the other Others, but not enough to justify almost abandoning three quarters of the cast for four of the six episodes. I am glad that the hatch is finally gone, but the show otherwise feels like it's treading water.

I've only had a few hours to knock around with it, but Gears of War is every bit as great as the hype made it out to be. Is it the most original game ever? No, but neither was Halo, or Half-Life or Rainbow Six. GoW is in that class of shooters.

I don't see how Microsoft can sell TV shows and movies on the 360 without having a larger hard drive available. Those 20GBs will fill up real fast with HD content.

After six months every issue of 52 has shipped on time and sold 100,000+ copies. Did anyone, could anyone, predict such success?

Random Musings - Lost Year Edition

Did I read that right? Wildcats #2 delayed until March?!?! All-Star Batman delayed until January? I love Jim Lee, but someone needs to pull him aside and tell him not to take on so many projects. Wildcats. All-Star Batman. The DC massively multiplayer game. He needs to look himself in the mirror and hand one of these off to another artist before its too late.

Fuse, the music video network, was actually playing Evil Dead this week. I don't think I've ever seen that broadcast outside of the premium channels. One of the great horror movies of all time.

I read Seven Soldiers #1 today. I didn't understand it, but I read it. The damn thing should come with a tab of acid to drop while you read it, maybe then it would make some sense.

Japanese game shows are funny. And so very, very painful.

I need Gears of War. Now.

I was given something called a Slanket the other day. Its a big, plush blanket with sleeves in it. It sounds a little odd at first (and it kind of looks like monk robes) but its actually a great idea. Being able to surf the web and play Saints Row in a cold house while snuggly wrapped up is very nice. And since a bunch of my friends and family seemed to like it my Christmas shopping got a bit easier this year.

Random Musings - Fembot Edition

Terrence Howard will be playing Jim Rhodes in the new Iron Man movie. Good casting, but with an eye towards future iterations of the character/franchise. The comic book movie collapse is staved off for another year.

David Eick, one of Battlestar Galactica's showrunners, will be bringing the Bionic Woman back to television, updating the concept a la BSG. The ethical/moral implications of a bionic person have always fascinated me, so this is right up my alley. No word on when the show will debut, but I'd guess Fall '07.

On a related note: A lot of people disliked BSG's season premiere.
It was too talky.
It was too political.
It was too different.
Me? I liked it. It wasn't great, but I thought it was effective. Lots of people hated the direction the show took at the very end of season 2 when the focus shifted to the New Caprica colony. The producers could have kept them bopping around in space for the next 6 seasons without a word of complaint, but they took a chance and changed the status quo of a hit show. It was very politically charged, but the past 2 seasons have dealt with complex hot button issues so well, and so even handedly, that it didn't bother me this one time.

Last BSG tidbit: earlier today a rumor hit the net (via AICN) that NBC was thinking of moving it form Sci-Fi to the mothership. This would be a collosally bad idea. BSG does very good, maybe great, ratings for a basic cable channel. Put those same numbers on a network show and you have a disaster.
(UPDATE - NBC has since debunked the rumor. Its staying on Sci-Fi)

So people are now camping out in front of game retailers to make pre-orders on the Playstation 3? For a console that costs $500-$600 and may only launch with ONE semi-exclusive title? I feel shame for my fellow gamers.